Pieces
by aavonlea
Summary: One of Ward's demons returns to him in the form of his little brother, and once again Ward's life is in pieces.


Sometimes Ward thought that his entire life was just a bunch of pieces. Scattered but not that far apart. Each part was laying just a few inches from the rest, so close and yet still too far. Too far. Always too far. This walkway was too far. Too far a walk. He didn't think he'd make it to the end of the path.

"_Fight back!" Dana shouted as he threw punch after punch at his brother, goading turning to rage, then confusion. "Why aren't you fighting back?" His voice was almost pleading._

_Now it was Grant's turn to be confused. "Why would I?"_

_And it was true. How could he possibly justify fighting back against Dana?_

_Dana's face turned hard again, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a slight sneer. "That's one thing that hasn't changed. I suppose it never will."_

Step. Step. Step. Too many pieces. Not even in order. They fell apart each time he tried to put them together again. And still, step by step, one foot in front of the other, he walked this path. He thought he might collapse. He hadn't collapsed from something like this in years.

"_What are you doing here?" were his first words to him. At least, first understandable words. He spend a good minute making unintelligibly gurgles as his mind fought to wrap around this impossible situation, around the person who couldn't possibly be standing in front of him and yet, miraculously, was._

"_I'm here to haunt you. I'm one of your demons," Dana replied, rolling his eyes and sneering up at him in what might have been anger or hatred or both. Probably both. "What do you think? I'm an agent of SHIELD now."_

_But his eyes had flashed dangerously as he said it. Perhaps Dana really was a demon._

Broken and mending and then tearing apart again. Scattered. Broken, mended, scattered, gone, come back, destroy. They destroyed lives, namely Grant's, but only in the metaphorical sense. No, he wouldn't be getting away with life that easily, and he didn't want to. But times like these, where he just didn't _know_ anymore what anything meant and why anything was. Times like these, when he couldn't tell left from right, up from down, and everything hurt but was also numb and he didn't understand how times like these could exist.

Only certain events could force feelings like this into existence.

"_I'm on mission. Nothing more, nothing less," Dana said, looking away from Grant. "After this, we don't ever have to see each other again. I know you'd like that."_

_Ward almost protested that but every time he'd spoken to Dana so far his glare had pierced Grant so deep that his sentences would be cut off abruptly as his words were caught in his throat._

"_You never bothered to try contacting me, Grant," Dana said, his tone changing from a level lack of emotion to a trembling echo. "Rose left, too, you know. Haven't heard from her in almost eight years."_

_Ward didn't know that._

Ward took a deep breath, trying to gather the strength of mind to keeping walking steadily towards his destination. Skye's hand supported his, which felt like a ton of lead. She didn't speak either. What could've been said in a situation like this anyway? No one around them spoke to him. As he walked by, people averted their eyes from his.

Broken. No, he wasn't broken. He was someone who used to be broken, but was now healing. There were other people who were broken. And he knew he had a hand in that. He broke them and that was one thing he just couldn't fix anymore and he _hated_ himself for that. He spent so much time making up for all the crap he'd done and the worst things he'd done were irreversible. He couldn't make it better. Not now. Not then. Not ever.

And still the pieces kept breaking and coming together and falling apart. Step. Step. Step. Mending. Breaking. Step. Step. Rewind. Fast forward. All coming in pieces and he knew for a fact that he had to be losing his mind.

Surreal.

"_I missed you," Dana said. "I did. And I hate you for that."_

"_I know you do," Grant replied, unable to say anything._

_And then Dana was whirling around, and Grant felt his younger brother's right fist connect with his jaw in a furious right hook. Grant staggered, and another hit came his way. Again. And again. And he deserved this. He'd done this much and more to Dana. He deserved this a thousand times over. Punch. Kick. Punch._

"_Fight back!" Dana said. Punch. Kick._

"_No," Grant replied simply, wiping the dribble of blood from his lip._

"_Big brother Grant has been training with the terrorists, both Hydra and SHIELD," Dana said sarcastically. "Surely big ol' soldier brother Grant has a few moves? Surely he can fight back?"_

_Ward did nothing._

"_Well, I've got news for you, Grant," he said, a smirk on his face. "I've finally learned to fight too."_

_Upon these words, Grant felt an entirely new blow hit him that had nothing to do with the punches Dana was throwing._

"_You shouldn't have had to," Grant said._

"_Fight back!" Dana shouted as he threw punch after punch at his brother, goading turning to rage, then confusion. "Why aren't you fighting back?"_

_There it was, the pleading. That need, the desperation for Grant to fight him, to do something, to do anything._

_But how could Grant say that he didn't deserve to fight back? He deserved every blow he got now._

"Ward?" Skye said. An echo.

Maybe this wasn't even real. Maybe this was some horrid dream or something. Maybe he wasn't really at this place, dressed in black. Maybe none of this had happened. So he couldn't acknowledge Skye's tugging hand, or her concerned expression. He couldn't acknowledge anything that would betray this reality as true.

More wishful thinking.

He spotted the thing that he knew all along was at the end of his path, laying there perfectly in front of him as if mocking him for ever thinking this could just be another one of his cruel nightmares. He wondered if he could still simply refuse to acknowledge what it was. Maybe. Could he?

"Grant," Skye said, more forcefully. He looked down at her, and saw her eyes were full of concern. He didn't want her concern.

"I'm okay," he said. A lie.

'No, I'm not,' was what he might've said if he wasn't already in pieces, if the pieces weren't floating away from him, if he and Skye and Dana were all just as insignificant as those pieces were.

He wasn't sure if he was making sense to himself even.

"_I want us to be okay," Ward said, making the leap he'd been trying towards for what felt like an eternity. "We're going to give this a shot okay?"_

"_Is this really the time?" Dana asked. They were walking in the basement corridors of some secret base, the mission for which Dana had been assigned as backup for the team._

"_Probably. I don't care," Ward said. "We're all we've got. We can be a family."_

"_Your fat lip and black eye says otherwise," Dana replied, looking down._

"_Do you want to try?" Grant asked, trying to keep the feeling of desperation out of his voice._

_Dana seemed to consider the question for a moment, before nodding, a light smile on his face that Grant hadn't seen since they were children, and for a second one of the pieces floated back into place. Then that second ended, and the real battle began. Meaning, the fight they were here on the mission for started, and Grant couldn't help but admire the skills his little brother had in hand to hand combat as well as firearms. How long had Dana been working as a field agent?_

_Grant found himself laughing. This was almost fun, fighting alongside Dana. Like it was the family business or something, although nothing could be further from the truth. Trip showed up, aiding in the fight. And May and Skye, too. Nothing could be better than this. A seamless, fluid team. Grant was happy. When was the last time he'd actually been genuinely happy?_

_Grant should've took that as the warning for what would happen next, as things that seemed too good to be true usually were. Grant's reverie ended with the last crack of the gun and the sight of Dana falling forward. And everything after that was just another piece of the puzzle that he wish he could throw away._

"Skye?" Ward said, pausing in his march down the path. He didn't want to see what was in store for him once he got to the end. "Didn't you once say that pieces could solve a puzzle?"

She nodded.

"Good to know."

His eyes had just fallen on the figure of a woman standing next to the dreaded object. He recognized her, although he wasn't sure how to feel about it. She was a piece, too. Just as much as he was.

_The wait outside of the infirmary was either two minutes or a thousand years._

_And as soon as Simmons came out of the lab and he saw her and she saw him, he knew. Because there was something missing from her eyes that had been present since he'd rejoined the team. Loathing. Instead, it had been replaced by something else, something that filled him with the most horrible dread he'd ever felt, worse than even the time Skye had been on life support. It was sympathy._

_He found himself shaking his head and whispering, "No, no, no…" over and over before she even had a chance to open her mouth, but when she did, sure enough the only words to come out of her mouth were, "I'm so sorry."_

_And just like that, Ward's world was lost. He'd lost his world a few times over the course of his life. For the past few months he'd been clinging on to the idea that the team could be his world and every time they looked at him with approving gazes or even just a simple lack of hatred he clung even harder to that thread of a world. But when Dana had come back into his life, he entertained the thought that maybe he could rebuild over the ruins of an old world, just for the two of them. Grant and Dana, brothers again. Real brothers._

_Wishful thinking._

_Grant didn't bother to contain himself. There was none of that "It's a weakness" anymore, he didn't give a crap about it being a weakness. He didn't give a crap that he was supposed to be the strong one. He knelt down right on the floor there and cried. He cried, and cried, as his entire being was lost in pieces once again. His teammates - he wasn't sure if he was allowed to call them friends - all took a respectful step back, all except Fitz, who knelt down on the floor next to him and laid a hand on his shoulder._

_He cried for what had been over fifteen lost years, years he should've had a home. Years Dana should've had a home._

Grant didn't feel like a survivor anymore. He felt like someone wandering about, who miraculously just managed to keep walking.

And he walked to the end of his path, and up to the thing he dreaded. He looked down into the coffin and upon the soft face of Dana Ward. Years of growing up with Maynard and their parents hadn't made a mark on his face, still so soft, still so new, still so young. Skye left his side to give him a moment there, and the woman he'd seen earlier approached him.

"Hi, Rose," he said, before she had even opened her mouth. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Likewise," she replied.

He turned away from the body of their brother and instead studied Rose's face. Unlike Dana's, hers wasn't so soft anymore. Young, yes, but she looked so tired. Her eyes were even redder than his.

"It's good to see you," he told her. It was different from when he'd clung so hard to Dana's presence when he'd first seen him again. He wouldn't be clinging very hard this time. He'd learned his lesson.

"Good to see you too. The circumstances of seeing you, though," she said, looking down at the coffin, "aren't so good." She made a sporting attempt at a smile, but only managed to make her lips tremble. He hooked his hand into hers. He was still her brother, right? Right?

"Things have a funny habit of working out that way."

"Grant?" she said suddenly. "Do you want to… talk?"

He paused, considering, then said in an even voice, "Yes."

But he wouldn't entertain the thought of sharing a new world with anyone else. No more wishful thinking. No more relying on others for a ground to stand on. He'd make a world for himself.

"_Are you okay?" were his first words to him as he pulled him up from the stone walls, soaking wet and clinging to the rope. There was sheer terror in the young boy's eyes._

_But he managed to nod._

"_I-" Grant began, but what could he say? He couldn't just say he was sorry. Nothing he could say would make any difference._

_Dana still held on to him, though. Grant didn't understand it. Dana was still coughing up water and yet he clung to Grant's middle with unmovable force. Grant sat down with Dana in the grass, trying to quell the tremors going through his brother's body as Dana cried. Grant didn't think he'd ever felt so much hatred, didn't think he'd ever feel hatred like this ever again, and it was all directed at himself. Grant hated himself so goddamn much._

"_Is it always gonna be like this?" Dana asked as his crying began to subside._

_Grant held Dana tighter. "No. I'm going to fix this," he said. "Someday soon, everything is going to change."_

**(A/N) I really have no ability to write anything happy. I'm sorry.**


End file.
